Monday, October 27, 2014

There are 426 School Districts in the State of Wisconsin, that
currently serve over 800,000 public school students. In each of these
426 school districts, there is a democratically elected school board
that represents the community in running the School
District(approximately 3000 elected School Board members in WI).
In 1921, the Wisconsin Association of School Boards(WASB)
was formed. WASB seeks to advance education through supporting the
tradition of local school board control of the state’s public schools.
The Wisconsin Association of School Boards is a member-driven
organization that supports,
promotes and advances the interests of public education in Wisconsin.
WASB offers various services, from advice, to training, to advocacy and
information. One thing WASB also does is send out questions to
candidates running for elected office that focus on education.
This year was no different....well it was a little different(amphasis mine):As it has done for a number of years, the Wisconsin Association
of School Boards (WASB) has conducted a question-and-answer with the
gubernatorial candidates, in this case Walker, the incumbent, and the
challenger Mary Burke. According to the WASB website, “In keeping with our past practice, we
posed a series of questions to the candidates on a range of education
issues. Governor Walker’s response to the survey request stated ‘our campaign will not be completing any interest group surveys or interviews.’”WASB did publish Mary Burke's responses and they can be found here!
Scott Walker has time to be interviewed by Hugh Hewitt, The right wing American Spectator Magazine, The right wing talk tank Hoover Institute, the despicable Rush Limbaugh, CNN, New York Times, and GQ, where this was revealed:Back when Scott Walker was a young politician on the make, he was
known in media circles as a guy only too happy to supply quotes. Today
the governor rarely does interviews. (At the outset, his staff would
only promise me two or three of what they called "pullouts"—a chance to
ever-so-briefly grab him after an event and on the way to his
car—though ultimately I was granted two sit—downs of about twenty
minutes each.) Instead, Walker's preferred vehicle for conveying his
opinions is supplied by Sykes and other (right wing)talk-radio hosts,
since their deference to him is almost vassal-like. As Walker's former
chief of staff, Keith Gilkes, told me, "It's a medium where the
governor can go on the air and deliver a message unfiltered."
We also found out in the #walkerdocs drop, that Scott Walker enjoys telling our local right wing talk radio jocks what they should be talking about:In 2008, after the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel editorialized in
favor of light rail, Walker turned to his talk radio allies to make
clear his opposition to government-funded rail transit.He frequently dropped conservative talkers Sykes, Belling,
Weber, Jeff Wagner and Vicki McKenna emails with talking points about
major issues before the county, and often distributed treats.“County Executive Scott Walker plans on making his rounds next
week to deliver his own special holiday treat — Frosted Pecans (I have
already heard just about every nut joke, but you can try) to thank his
radio friends for getting the word out throughout the year on the
Executive’s Ride, the Budget, and other county-related issues,”
spokeswoman Fran McLaughlin wrote in a December 2007 email.